Lately, I have been having some stimulating conversations with CEO’s and CMO’s about Vision/ Mission, Culture and Brand Purpose. They have many questions regarding how often should these ideas be revisited? How should they be cascaded throughout the company and by whom? They wonder whether they should address Vision/ Mission, Culture and Brand Purpose with internal resources, or secure the help of their agencies and consulting firms?

As most of my readers and followers know, Inward and I have been huge supporters of employee engagement for over 20 years. One piece of research after another supports the proposition that employee engagement is a decisive factor in company success. Research from EEA (Enterprise Engagement Association) has data that says companies with high levels of employee engagement have higher shareholder value and revenue. Gallup research indicates that high employee engagement contributes to higher productivity and revenue growth. I just saw some recent study that suggests that less than 50% of the employees understand the brand idea and even fewer understand what they're supposed to do to support the brand value proposition. So, it comes as no surprise what the Temkin Group has just released regarding their “Employee Engagement Competency & Maturity, 2018”.

For those of you who are regular readers of our blogs, you know that we generally don’t cut and paste articles or press releases from other sources. However, today I came across an interesting piece from Paychex that ran on PRNewswire that is worthy of attention. Instead of paraphrasing it, I thought I’d just run it in its entirety with a link to the actual source of the report. The announcement is about a recently released Paychex Pulse HR survey that was recently conducted among HR professionals at one of their annual conferences. In a nutshell, they say that there is a strong commitment to talent management, as 85% of respondents said they're focusing on company culture to drive results.

Creating a large pool of loyal customers is extremely important to the sustainability of a business, but it is the employees that are the enabler of the products and innovations. Having loyal employees and loyal customers allow companies to sell products more successfully than average. Great products and excellent employee service are crucial to creating loyal customers and growing a business.

This week I am sure you are seeing many thought leadership articles, opinion pieces and blog posts addressing business, marketing and technology predictions for this new year. So far, I have seen discussions on mobile technologies, continued mergers and acquisitions, the raging tech stock market, artificial intelligence and the list goes on. One thing is for sure, the proverbial crystal ball for 2018 will be cloudy. No one knows for sure what will happen or what will become reality.

This past Sunday CVS Health agreed to acquire Aetna for over $69 billion. Wow! The new company, combining one of the country’s biggest pharmacies with one of its largest health insurers, will create a world where patients will get the “human touch,” they said. Fewer people will fall through the cracks, they promised, and getting high-quality, low-cost medical care will be as close as your corner drugstore.